First time blogger sharing the trials and tribulations of being a stay at home father. Some humour will be tried, often badly. Enjoy. Follow. Comment. Fall in love with my children and offer to take them for a weekend so I can get a break. (kidding, ......... or am I???) You have been warned. The sarcasm flows freely here.

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Since I was last in touch with all of you, things have happened. Sunday was Father's Day here in the good ole U S of A. (It could have been it other parts of the world, I just don't know definitively) I was treated to a day of golf and some lovely cards from the family. The golf has become sort of an annual traditions for my father, father in-law, brother in-law and whatever father/son teams we can drum up. It is a nice break from the daily SAHD life (for me). I wish I could have played better and won some money for team Hoehne, but that wasn't in the cards. Oh well. At least it was a beautiful day.

So on or about the 8th tee box my phone starts going crazy. So I look down and see my Twitter account has some action. Now I haven't even looked at the Tweet machine in quite some time. So I wrote if off as spam. Then another one. And another. I could have looked to see what all the commotion was, but screw that. I'm playing golf. Or trying to. (we use the Quota point system so we are all on an even playing field. In a nut shell, you get 1 point for a bogey, 2 for a par, 4 for a birdie and so on. And I had yet to score a single point. And it was the 8th hole. My golf game was lacking.)

Fast forward to Monday afternoon when I get a chance (or finally remembered to look) to see what all the hub-bub was about. I was a featured dad on Dad's in the limelight series by a fellow blogger @dadofdivas. His mission: "Being a Dad is hard work and the Dads in the Dads in the Limelight Series are doing an amazing job balancing life and fatherhood on a daily basis."He had reached out to me a few months back inquiring about my participation in his project. He sent me some questions that I gladly answered. Almost as soon as I was finished, I forgot all about it. When I looked, I was reminded of my insightful answers and it all came running back to me. "I remember that thing I did." What this fine gentleman did was feature me on Father's Day; when the world is searching the interweb for all things "Dad." (or so I hoped.) He even left in the link to this fine and worldly blog. (shoutout to all the European readers. Thanks!) To say it was an honor is an understatement. Even if no one outside of my Facebook friends read it (because I bombarded them with the link) it was nice to be recognized. I was a celebrity, even in my own mind, for a day. So to thank him I ask all of you to head over to the Dad's Of Divas web site. Poke around. Read what his is up to. Follow his blog. Or just be a Peeping Tom, lurking from the bushes. But if you all could give his site some traffic that would be penny in the wishing well of thanks.

Back to the title of this post.

Yesterday the littlest offspring was playing on her playmat, as she does most days. Hey, it quietly entertains her and lets me get other things done. But this time I happened to be sitting next to her, prime seats for the milestone show. She had been hinting at rolling over, getting onto her side only to fall back to her back. But last night she made the leap to adulthood. She went right over to her tummy. That's rolling back to front! (Keep your stories of you kid rolling over back to front/front to back like a barrel at 4 months. She isn't that advanced yet, but soon. She's only 12 weeks. Get off my back and let me have this on little thing, at least for one minute). Of course once she was on her stomach and got bored of the lack of scenery to gaze at she became annoyed. So I flipped her back over. Then it happened again. Flipped back. And again.

So there you have it. My child is now (semi) mobile. I guess this is just a primer for the crawling stage. And/or the walking/running stage (I'm telling you she's advanced. She might not crawl and go right for the jugular and walk right on out of here). So if you see me grinning from ear to ear, or just looking tired and tattered from rolling an infant back every so often, you'll know why.

Thursday, June 5, 2014

Like I said yesterday, I knew I forgot some things that happened on my hiatus. And it was kind of big. You are saying to yourself, "How can you forget something big that happened?" I did. Well I didn't totally forget it. I remembered it today, and every day since it happened. But it is big. "Nut-ah," you say? I say "Um-ha!" "Nut-ah." "Um-Ha!" "Nut-ah!" "You're right."

So before the baby was born, my six year old decided one day that she was a vegetarian. Kids go through stages. Try new things. Do drastic things like change their hair color to blue or some radical shade of OSHA pink so everyone in society will stand clear of their heads. The wife and I inquired about such a life change. Her response was priceless. She had just watched a movie in school about poachers and poaching. From that movie she took away that all animals are important and NOT TO BE EATEN. (I can agree with the first part) She said she didn't want to hurt any animals, especially the endangered ones. Because we eat endangered species all the time.

"Honey, what's for dinner tonight?"

"Oh, just some oven baked Bald Eagle with a side of Black Rhino in a red wine demi-glaze." Said no one ever. (but it does sound tasty)

Now we are not vegetarians. Her teacher is but we are pro meat in this household. It has its own category in the food pyramid. (And if animals weren't supposed to be eaten, then why do they taste so good?) We chatted about the benefits of eating meat and how the meat we eat is raised to be eaten. But she stuck to her guns and was very adamant about being a vegetarian. Ok. Run with it, kid.

We discussed that she would have to get her protein elsewhere, mostly through beans, cheese and other high protein (non meat) foods. That night we prepared a nice salad. We were all dressing our abundant salads of greens, vegetables and chickpeas when we asked if she wanted bacon bits (real ones; not the imitation crap) she hesitated. Yes being a vegetarian would meant giving up bacon too. Giving up the worlds most perfect food; bacon. A food that should have it's own category in the food pyramid. She thought for a moment then decided that she was going all in on this vegetarian thing. Bravo, child. She made up her mind and stuck to it. (This does not fare well for me when she hits the teenage years.)

So this new found diet has stuck around since then; all told about 12 weeks (give or take). She might be the healthiest eating six year-old in the history of six year-old eating. We even ran into a nice older woman at the grocery store in the frozen veggie burger section and got schooled on some of the things. Like how the Bocca Burgers are the fast food of vegetarian eating, meaning not all that good for you but still within the vegetarian limits. I even had one and they aren't all that bad. Now I am not going to go veige anytime soon; I just tried one to check it out. Ya know, to make sure it's safe for my kid.

The new menu has some challenges. I have never made a special meal when the kids don't like what we are having. What is for dinner, is what is for dinner. I am far to busy to be a personal cook. We have been taking into account what she will eat and plan our meals to fit in. Maybe we are all eating healthier because of it? We were always into the fresh vegetables and not so much into processed food; but we occasionally divulge. So the change wasn't that far out of our comfort zone. Just no tasty, delicious, yummy meat for her. (Her loss. More for the rest of us)

So that is the other big news. We haven't even discussed the "V" word with her. I don't think anyone in this house is ready for a vegan. And I will hunt you down if you mention it to her. Kidding....... Kind of.

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

I don't really know where I left off with you all. And I am too lazy to go back and read, so here's the latest:

Many of my loyal readers (including those in Europe; which still blows my mind that people that far away and whom I have never even met read my blog) know my better half was pregnant, again. (And if you didn't know, now you do) On March 24th of this year we welcomed our newest DAUGHTER (Yes, now I live with four women) to our family.

Wait, that might be a bit too gory. Lets try this one:

That's better. Anyhow, Josie's story starts like this:

The plan was to drop off the soon-to-be middle child off at preschool and head out to the hospital for our scheduled C-Section. The aforementioned preschooler gets dropped off at 9 and we were not to be at the hospital until 11:30. What can two grown adults do for two and a half hours that didn't involve food? (Because no eating before surgery) So we meandered on our way, stopping at the book store to get a book about pets moving onto the afterlife for our friend's child that recently lost a beloved dog. That killed about 15 minutes. Then to the card store to hunt for an "I'm Sorry Your Pet Has Died" card. Surprisingly hard to find. Another 10 minutes burnt. But we were also 25 minutes closer to the hospital. So we decide to just go early and see what happens. Good idea, right? Or so we thought. We get to the place where they fix people (Hospital), head up to L&D, wait, check in, wait, get our staging room, wait, wait, watch the other birthing women on the monitors, wait. There was a backup in the O.R. The nurses contact our surgeon to tell him not to rush because of said backup. I went to get something to eat, ya know because we couldn't kill time eating before. I was back maybe ten minutes when it was go time. But no "We are going to start to move you," or no "The doctor is here and the O.R. had been cleared for takeoff." Just a mass of nurses and staff whisking us down the hall. Not so much me. I was lagging behind with all the bags and left over food, and whatever I could carry. The bed couldn't carry all that stuff AND a bag of clothes.

The wife gets taken into the sterile environment while I get to wait (again, alone this time) and change into my very stylish and sexy scrubs. Then some more waiting. The Dr. pops his head out to tell me that my wife has a nice back and the epidural went in without a hitch. Thanks for that. It's strange what people notice. We were instructed to make a playlist for our delivery, which we/I did. And it kicked ass. So much ass that I forgot the iPod when I was finally called to join the party. So back I run to the partner waiting area to gather said Apple device and hustle my way back. Now I didn't think my playlist was that cool. Just some Beatles, maybe some Beach Boys and some G'n'R. But the staff raved about my soundtrack. It was fun. It was mostly appropriate.

About an hour after I got to the party, my daughter Josie Catherine was born (to "Here Comes The Sun"). Both mom and baby did fine.

I stayed at the hospital that night to help change diapers and such, seeing how post C-Section moms can't do any heavy lifting. I changed 12 poopie (baby poop, merconium, the stuff they tar roads with). One thing we knew after that night was this kid can poop! It is a major life skill, after all. Really a key to survival.

Like I said, I stayed one night and then back to tend to the other offspring. They missed mommy. But they were excited for their new sister. The next few days we all spent time going back and forth to visit and tend to both mom and child. Then homeward bound and things get real fun!

A few weeks before the birth, the oldest picked up this attitude. Lots of back talk and general nastiness. It could have had something to do with the baby. It could have been the weather. It could have been school. I think she's just blossoming into her teenage years sooner than we thought. Needless to say, we have yet to curb this new peachy attitude. And, boy, is it fun!

Some other things that happened:

We took a mini family vacation to Boston. That went well.

The garden got planted. I had to expand one garden and reduce one. All told, I now have 1080 square feet of garden. So what do you do with a plot that big? I put in 34 tomato plants, corn, squash, zucchini, beans, spinach, eggplant, watermelon, other melon, lettuce, kale, basil, thyme, oregano, dill, parsley, beans, peas, and strawberries. You know, because I have a screw loose.

This past weekend we just attended the two girls dance recital. Usually their recitals have one or two major catastrophes. No one ever gets hurt. Things like the sound shuts off, or the preschoolers cry throughout their entire routine. This year I lent my audio expertise to the sound issues of years past. At least that part was under control. No sound dropping on my watch! The first show went rather well. Nothing too, too bad. Just a broken "stretcher" (table on wheels) and minor logistical issues that go with the territory of getting 100 or so (or more, or less. I lost count) women and girls where they need to be at the time they need to be there. Again, no one got hurt. The second show. Ahh. The second show. We all should have know that something was going to happen. The first show went well. In the second show, in the very first number, the lights go out. 18 minutes later we figure out what in God's name happened and restart the show. Major crisis resolved, or so we thought. Somehow in the blackout and rebooting of the light board, on light stayed on. It stayed on, illuminating the stage during set changes, shining right on the crew moving props. The real stars of the show were now THE show. Now I have been back stage for a great deal of shows of all kinds. The back stage folks do not want to be seen. We are the people that make the show run smoothly and we are not used to being seen. But the crew never let it bother them and kept right on going. Intermission came and we were determined to fix this rogue light. And right when it was resolved, the board shut everything down again. Another 5 minutes of extra intermissioning (now all told 23-25 minutes behind schedule) we got it figured out. And I am just the sound guy. All shows come with their own stress. But this show was the most stressful show I have done. Ever. The rest of the second act went off with out a hitch. (Thank Goodness)

All said and done, we have been very busy these last few months. And now that my wife is back to work I should have more time to blog. Sitting at the computer while she was home didn't feel right, with the baby around and all the other work that had to be done. Now I can goof off in peace.

I am sure I left out a bunch of stuff that happened. It must not have been important, otherwise I would have remembered. Or living with four girls has already turned my mind to mush.

Here is what I do remember, and not just because there is a photo. Here is me and the three kids on Easter.